


Landless

by Labicchan



Series: The King and the Landless [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Erebor Never Fell, Baby!Pippin, Bilbo is a dancer, Hurt/Comfort, Landless!Hobbits, M/M, Multi, Obsessive Behavior, Politics, Thorin POV, Thorin is king, Timeline What Timeline, Young!Frodo Sam and Merry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Labicchan/pseuds/Labicchan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a rich and powerful Erebor, King Thorin comes across a young Hobbit boy. A Landless, a creature without a place to call home. With the boy comes his uncle, a Dancer peculiar enough to draw His Majesty attention. Inspired loosely on Notre-Dame de Paris, the tale of two people, and two worlds, that weren't supposed to meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, here I am.  
> After months of procrastinating, finally I decided to write this fic.  
> First of all, thank you for being there, reading this fic, I appreciate this, I really do! So don't be shy and leave a review if you want, I swear I don't bite!  
> Second, this is a Multichapter Fic (yes with a capital M, because it's the first time ever I write a thing longer than a chapter), it will be updated as regularly as I can.  
> Thirdly, English is not my first language. I was sadly born in Italy, so it is possible that there'll be some errors, feel free to point them out (please, do it!)  
> Fourthly (it's even a word?!), enjoy this!

The sun was shining over Erebor the day Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain, decided to exit his mountain and take a look at the Market .  
It was, as always, an incredible mess, with Men, Dwarves and Elves going around, talking to each others, bargaining over the price of the various goods on sale or simply looking through the various stands that occupied the main road.  
Like every time he left his Mountain, he was followed by his loyal guard and long-suffering friend Dwalin, who scoffed at sight of an Elf shouting to a Dwarf for the apparently too-high price of a lovely set of earrings.  
“Ye though by now they knew no Dwarf'd lower his price for a sissy Elf” grumbled the guard under his breath.  
“They never really learn, right?” answered Thorin glancing around and noticing a near stand full of exotic fruit and vegetables.  
The owner of the little shop, a middle-aged Man, bowed deeply as soon as the King got closer to the stand,smiled warmly at the Ruler under the Mountain and started showing off his products with such an enthusiasm that he almost made a strange looking yellow cucumber tumble to the ground several times.  
About half a minute after the last near-fall of said cucumber, a loud commotion came from a near corner and attracted the attention of several people, Thorin and Dwalin included.  
“'t must be that damn thief again!” roared the guard, charging towards the origin of such turmoil without a second thought, leaving the other Dwarf trailing after him at a more sedated pace.  
“What do ye think ye're doing, lad?!” the loud shout coming from the corner made Thorin go faster in order to reach his clearly irritated guard.  
“If that thief has stolen again from the same stand, Dwalin is going to have a coronary for the stress” mumbled the Dwarf under his breath turning around the corner and stopping abruptly at the sight before him.  
The Dwarf who owned the stand had grabbed the arm of the supposed thief, who was yelling and trashing into the Dwarf's grasp wildly, trying in vain to get free from the much bigger hands holding him tightly.  
But despite Thorin's first assumption, the thief was not the usual thin and lanky Dwarf who had been going around stealing for months now and who had put Dwalin and his men on edge because of his sneakiness and stealth.  
No, in front of him was a tiny young Hobbit, nothing more than a child, with wild black curls and teary blue eyes, a desperate expression on his slightly chubby face.  
“Master Dwarf, please, release him, now” ordered Thorin, looking at the scene before him with a stern expression.  
It had been almost 5 years since the last time a Hobbit had been seen going about Erebor and the near city of Dale and Thorin didn't really know what to make of it.  
Hobbits.   
The forgotten sons of Yavanna, left without a land and forced to march through the world without an actual destination forever.  
Hobbits.  
Thieves, beggars and whores.  
Landless.  
Always running away from city to city, without a single day of rest in all of their miserable lives, never trusted, always looked at with suspect.  
Nonetheless, the young one trashing about, couldn't have been more than six or seven and Thorin was forced to admit that his dirty and wet cheeks made him feel a bit guilty about the boy, who probably had been forced to steal by his parents.  
He then knelt down on one knee, trying to make eye-contact with the Hobbit, but uselessly, because the young one was stubbornly staring at his furry feet, avoiding the King's blue orbs with decision.  
“Why did you steal from this stand?” asked firmly Thorin, staring at the black curls adorning the boy's head.  
The Hobbit didn't answer, he just started shifting his weight from one foot to the other, fidgeting nervously and keeping his head lowered.  
“The King asked ye a question, lad!” growled Dwalin impatiently, his hands going towards Grasper and Keeper, the two axes strapped onto his back.  
“I didn't steal anything” came a little, squeaky voice from the boy.  
“Like hell, you didn't!” shouted the merchant, making the Hobbit jump “I saw him grabbing an apple from my stand,Your Majesty! Mahal, I swear he did!”  
“I had money to pay it!”  
“Stolen money, probably, then! Everybody knows how you dirty Landless gain your money, whelp!” spat the Dwarf  
“It's not true, I did not steal!” cried the boy in distress, his face red with anger and embarrassment.  
Thorin placed a hand on the Dwarf's shoulder “I think that's enough. You got your apple back and the boy didn't cause any harm. I'll take care of the Hobbit now” he then turned towards Dwalin “make sure he doesn't run away, we'll take him to the Landless' camp, it must be near”  
“Yes, Yer Majesty” answered the guard dutifully and grabbed the boy by an arm, yanking him beside himself, his hold as tight as a morsel.  
“Lead the way to your camp, boy, we'll take you back to your family” ordered the King, coldly.  
The Hobbit just nodded with his head bowed and started walking through the Market like he owned it, with an air of security about him, even though his head stayed lowered.  
While walking, Thorin couldn't help but stare at the little Hobbit before him: even though he had chubby cheeks, he was thin, too thin for such a young boy, his feet were full of callouses from long days of march through the whole Middle Earth.  
While his clothes were relatively clean, they were a tad too big for him, making him seem even smaller than how he actually was and the mop of hair on top of his head definitively needed to be combed.  
“Do you live here, boy?” answered the King, when they reached the small place at the centre of the Market, where often enough acrobats or jugglers performed to gain something easily.  
“No. I'm just looking for someone” answered the Hobbit, glancing around the crowd attentively.  
“Don't ye try running away, lad, 'cause if ye do it then...” but the boy never got to hear what Dwalin would have done him, had he run away, because a relieved voice made the three turn around quickly.  
“Frodo!”   
Thorin stared at the creature in front of him. It was clearly a Hobbit, older than the boy, probably an adult -though it was difficult to say, without a beard-, with dark blond hair and blue eyes filled with agitation and, in part, relief at the sight of the young one.  
What attracted the most Thorin's attention, though, was the fact that this Hobbit was dressed in silky-looking, dark red clothes, adorned with bells and fake jewels.  
A Dancer, then.  
That, or a whore.  
When he rushed towards Frodo, if that was the boy's name, he made so with a clinking noise, the bells around his ankles dingling loudly.  
“Oh, Frodo, you scared me so much! I told you to stay until the end the exhibition! You didn't get in trouble, did you?” ranted the Hobbit clutching at the boy and kissing his head and his cheeks several time, looking for bruises and cuts while doing so.  
Then he seemed to notice the two Dwarves staring at him and tried to compose himself, turning to them with a small but grateful smile.  
“Thank you, for taking him back to me, Your Majesty, Master Dwarf” said the hobbit bowing to them with reference “I was so scared he'd got himself into troubles again!”  
“Actually, he was. He was caught stealing from a fruit stand. An apple, so it seems” answered Thorin, watching the older Hobbit's eyes widen in shock.  
“He wouldn't. I...I gave him money this morning, just in case something happened. He knows he has to pay! Frodo, you know!”  
“I didn't steal, Uncle! That stupid, arse-faced Dwarf grabbed me before I could take my money!”  
The boy's uncle sighed deeply, turned again to the Dwarves and thanked them again, with one last bow, then lifted the boy off of the ground and held him to his hip.  
“I'm afraid we have to go back to our camp, otherwise we'll find ourselves within the Walls after they close the Doors” said the Hobbit, and started marching towards the Doors without hesitation.  
“Wait!” yelled Thorin after them “Why wouldn't you stay within the Walls?”  
The Landless stopped abruptly and turned around to face the King.  
“Because Hobbits don't do well inside stone walls, Your Majesty. Have a good Night”  
Dwalin snorted beside him and Thorin couldn't help but agree with his friend, yet that Landless intrigued him a bit, with his soft manners and cordial disposition.  
He was not like he thought Hobbits were, like he had been taught Hobbits were.  
Only when he'd been back to the Mountain, had bathed and dressed down for sleep, then and only then, he realized he didn't even know the Hobbit's name


	2. Chapter 2

Saying that Thorin was exhausted would have been an understatement: he had spent the last three hours listening to his subjects complaining about how the Hobbits' presence had been nothing but a nuisance during the last week.  
His nephews, sitting on both his sides, were dozing off, Kili with his head in his hand and Fili sprawled on his chair, and Thorin really couldn't blame them: most of the Dwarves present had been saying the same thing over and over, how they've been robbed, or thwarted, or just seduced by a Landless or another and how they demanded a retribution.  
“And the little bugger just came behind me and stole all my money! Your Majesties, you have to do something or those Hobbits'll keep robbing all of us! Make them go, for Mahal's sake!”  
“The point, Master Dori, is that they aren't actually within our borders, they placed their camp outside the Walls, I cannot make them go away, it's not within my rights. And anybody is welcomed to the Market”  
The grey-haired Dwarf huffed irritatedly and, after a deep bow, left the Throne Room, leaving the three royals by themselves.  
“Kili, Fili, wake up, you have to go to your rooms, you both look exhausted and you have your lessons in an hour.” said the King, shaking the young Dwarves into consciousness.  
Grumbling and muttering unkind things, the two left the Throne Room, leaving their uncle alone.  
And in the silence of the chamber, Thorin heard it.  
A chuckle coming from around the corner.  
A chuckle coming from a corner that should have been empty.  
It felt like the right moment to draw his sword and, very slowly, approach the corner.  
What he found was not what he was expecting at all.  
Huddled behind a great cupboard, were three little Hobbits, giggling madly until they realised they'd been caught.  
Then they tried to run away.  
But Thorin, with the quickness of the warrior he was, caught one, making the other two stop.  
“Let him go, you bastard!” yelled a tiny voice from around his ankles.  
“Frodo?” asked the king, completely baffled.  
“Oh, you do remember me, then. Let Sam go, now!”  
Thorin looked ad the chubby Hobbit in his arms and deposited him on the floor, keeping him from his shirt.  
“What were you doing exactly? And how did the three of you sneak inside here?! It's full of guards around there!”  
“They didn't see us! We were very quiet! We used the secret passages!” piped in the third boy, his reddish hair a complete mess.   
“Hush, Merry, no-one's supposed to know it!” Chided Frodo, whose attention was then again directed to Thorin “Let Sam go, you arse!”  
Though, even with all Frodo's complaining, the chubby redhead wasn't even trying to escape, but instead he was very still, as if he feared Thorin would have hurt him at his first move.  
“Where's you uncle, Frodo? Didn't he tell you to stay out of troubles?”  
“Why would you wanna know?” asked Merry suspiciously, looking at the King through narrowed eyes.  
“Because he's surely have been looking for you, don't you think?”  
“No, he's with Pippin today! He didn't want him to leave, so they went together to the Market!”  
“If he's at the Market, we can find him easily, come on.” said Thorin holding out his free hand to the two Hobbits to take.  
The silent little redhead, holding tightly onto the King's tunic, looked up at him with huge eyes, opening his mouth for the first time “You won't kill us, right?”  
“Of course I won't, little one. Now, we have an uncle to find, let's go.” He said trying to cheer the young one up.  
While walking through the empty aisles of his Mountain, three little Hobbits in tow, he thought about what they'd said about the Dancer.  
He was with someone, a Man, maybe, or another Landless like him, someone who didn't want him to leave and that forced him to let his nephews by themselves.  
Someone who had probably forced him to do unholy things to get money for himself and, probably, the little ones, if their attachment to him was anything to go by.  
Absorbed in this kind of thoughts, he didn't realize he'd arrived outside the Palace's Doors, where, waiting with a little baby in his arms, was the Hobbits' uncle.  
He was calmly waiting on one side of the long set of stairs, cradling the baby and singing to him, his golden dress shining brightly in the daylight, attracting the stares of the people around him, though he didn't seem to care.  
“Good evening your Majesty, lovely day today, isn't it?” greeted the Hobbit with a smile on his lips “I see you found my fugitives again.”  
“I did. They were in my Throne Room. They're really good at sneaking”  
“I can't see where they got it from.” the Dancer deadpanned “Boys, I told you to stay near me, for Eru's sake! You knew I couldn't leave Pippin, but you ran away anyway!” scolded the Hobbit. “Now, your Majesty, I'm afraid we have to go or the Doors will close! Thank you again for your help!”  
“Wait!” shouted Thorin, making the Hobbits stop abruptly. “I'll escort you, they'll open the Doors again if they've already closed and I'm with you.”  
“Well” the Dancer said hesitantly “it's really kind of you, your Majesty.”  
“Thorin.”  
“Bilbo.”  
Thorin nodded briefly his head towards the Hobbit.  
At least now he had a name to go with a face, and a sinfully beautiful body.  
Not that he actually cared.  
While they were walking, the little baby in Bilbo's arms started to stir and seemed ready to cry, but the adult Hobbit cooed at him, so he soon fell asleep again.  
The other three younglings were holding eachothers' hands and walking before Thorin and Bilbo, giggling and whispering.  
As predicted, the Doors were already closed, but with a brisk gesture from Thorin, the Sentinels opened them again, letting the little group out of the Dwarvish Kingdom and into the masterless lands between Erebor and Dale.  
There, a couple or meters away stood the strangest thing Thorin had ever seen: a mess or tents, caravan and tapestry, all of them in seemingly endless shades of colours, was scattered around, in a shapeless moving city.   
All around a group of young Hobbits was playing in the dirt, building castles and other unrecognisable things, under the lazy watch of their parents and relatives.  
To say Thorin was fascinated by it, would have been an understatement.  
The young Hobbits sprinted towards it, entering the “city” without so much as a goodbye, leaving the two adults and the baby alone, in an awkward silence.  
Or at least to Thorin it was.  
The Landless did not seem a bit bothered by it, cuddling Pippin to his chest.  
“I guess now you'll have to go back to your Palace, right?”  
“I guess so.” agreed Thorin “It's a nice place, you've built here”  
“Yeah, it's not much, but we're planning to leave in a couple of weeks, if we can manage.” said Bilbo, a bit sadly.  
“You don't want to leave?”  
“It's nice to stay in one place, sometimes. Frodo,Merry and Sam like it here, and with Pippin so young it's difficult to travel.”  
“Are they all in your cares? Don't they have anyone?”  
Bilbo shocked his head, looking sad.  
“They've lost their parents, one way or another. Pippin's mother died birthing him, and we lost Frodo's parents and Sam's father two winters ago, while we were in Gondolin.”  
“It must be difficult for you.”  
“We get by. My mother helps a lot and with my dancing I earn what we need. It's a good things your Dwarves enjoy my shows.” laughed Bilbo self-deprecating. “Though they aren't really happy about us being here, I guess.”  
“No, they aren't.”  
They stood awkwardly before one another, until Pippin decided he had to make his presence clear and started bawling loudly.  
“I guess, it's time for me to take my leave. Goodnight Master Bilbo.”  
“Bilbo is enough, your Majesty, goodnight and thank you for your kindness.”  
Thorin nodded and left, all the while thinking about the tired face of the Landless and what he said about the Hobbits' lifestyle.  
Dwarves rarely left their homes, and even more rarely wandered about Middle-Earth.  
It certainly was nice staying always in one place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I don't dislike Dori, actually, I love all of the Dwarves, but I think he'd be to fussing to accept people like Hobbits, who are mostly wild people without proper manners.  
> 2\. Thorin loves kids. And he's pretty good with them, but with kids like Frodo and Merry it's difficult to stay calm. That's way he's more at ease with Sam  
> 3\. Pippin is the youngest Hobbit of the Fellowship, I decided to show him as a baby here.  
> 4\. The characters' hair colours were difficult for me to define, because I' a little colour-blind, but I hope I got them right  
> 5\. I imagined the Hobbits' camp like the Court of Miracles from the Disney film, therefore brightly coloured and full of drapes everywhere  
> 6\. Belladonna is still alive here and she'll be introduced later in this story, but Bungo, and the kids' various parents died in various ways during the long marches through Middle-Earth  
> 7\. Dwarves were not meant to be a travelling people, but due to theirMountain's occupation by Smaug were forced to became travellers. Here Smaug doesn't exists, so they are the static people they were supposed to be
> 
> That's all, folks, thank you!


	3. Chapter 3

Two days after Thorin's last encounter with Bilbo, the Dwarven King was walking along the Walls alone, enjoying the silence that surrounded him and that made him feel free after yet another morning spent holding court, listening to his people's endless complaints.  
The King knew very well that part of his job consisted in listening to what his Dwarves had to say, but since the Hobbits' arrival it seemed that all had something to say.  
Even though he clearly said he could do nothing.  
“Hey! Your Dwarfishness!” Thorin startled at the yell, looking around frantically for the source of the voice.  
“Down there! Look down!”  
He did and noticed little Frodo waving at him, jumping up and down to attract the King's attention.  
“Hi Frodo. You didn't run away, did you?”  
The Hobbit scrunched up his face in disdain “I did not. Uncle Bilbo told me to ask you if you wanted to have lunch with us. To say 'thank you' again for what you did.” explained Frodo, in a tone that made clear just how many times he'd been told to say those exact words to the King.  
For his part, Thorin was a bit baffled by Bilbo's invitation for lunch.  
He'd been taught to always answer positively to invitations like those, but on the other hand, it was Hobbits they were talking about.  
He wasn't supposed to be nice to them.  
They weren't supposed to be nice to him.   
The long pause had Frodo looking at him with confusion and anger.  
“Whatever, if you don't want to come, you can go bugger an orc!” huffed the Hobbit and turned around to leave, only to be stopped by Thorin's strong hold on his ill-fitted shirt.  
“Mahal, slow down! I'll have lunch with you!”  
“Really? You'll come?” Thorin nodded silently “Great, I told that stupid Lotho you would! Ah, he'll have to give me his meat portion!” exclaimed Frodo with enthusiasm, jumping around Thorin's legs.  
“Okay, now show me the way, I don't want to get lost.”  
“Yes! Oh, uncle Bilbo will be so happy!”  
Thorin startled a bit at this.  
The Dancer wanted to have lunch with him.  
His presence would be appreciated by him.  
It made him sort of warm inside for unthinkable reasons.  
Walking to the Camp, Frodo guiding him, he thought about what would happen during lunch, what he could say, what would Bilbo say.   
Unaware of his internal struggle, Frodo kept chatting, telling him about his friends, his cousins and how Pippin had started crying at night waking up the whole Camp.  
“We're here! This is where we have lunch. It's grandma Bella's tent.”  
“It's...lovely.”  
Lovely was not a word for the emerald green tent.  
Amazing would've been more appropriate.  
Splendid, even.  
Moving the flaps of the tent out of the way, Thorin was greeted by a warm room, filled with cloths and pillows, most of which had been placed around a short-legged table, in place of chairs.  
He looked around the room, noticing a Hobbit lady, clearly older than Bilbo, puttering around a small kitchen corner.  
“Grandma, we're here! He said yes!”  
The woman turned around, noticing him for the first time, her face opening in a kind smile, so similar to that of her son that was astounding.   
“Oh, Your Majesty, you're here, I can't believe it! Thank you, thank you!” Thorin found himself with an armful of Hobbit clinging to his tunic.  
“You're...you're welcome, ma'am.” he answered stiffly,awkwardly reciprocating the hug.  
“Mum, leave him alone, you're embarrassing him.”  
Oh, thank Mahal.  
The Dancer was there.  
He was there, looking at him with a smile, Pippin in his arms, wide awake, for once.  
“Good job, Frodo, you convinced him. Later you can go and rub it into Lotho's face, darling. Now go and call the others please, we're eating.” he paused, sighing “Mum, let him go, come on.”  
Bilbo's mother finally let him go, keeping him at arms length.  
“Yavanna bless you, it was a nice day the day you first met Frodo! A nice day indeed! Not all Kings are like you, Your Majesty, not at all! Most of them just want us gone as soon as possible!”  
Because of her excited chatter Thorin didn't really had the heart to tell her that he wasn't that much different to other Kings, but from Bilbo's sad smile he realized his face must had shown his discomfort.  
The awkward moment was broken by the kids' arrival, the noise more akin to a pack of Oliphants than to three little Hobbits.  
“Mister King!” screamed Merry, rushing at his side, rubbing his soft cheek against the rough material of Thorin's trousers “You're here!”  
“Yeah. I'm here.” he paused, thinking about what to say “Ehm, how are you?”  
“Great! Today we're having meat! We haven't had it in weeks!”  
To this Thorin's eyes widened almost comically.  
Weeks without meat were surely bad for growing children.  
Even more for underweight children.  
He looked at the two adults in the tent, only to find them not meeting his gaze, ashamed, both of their ears red with embarrassment.  
“Yes, we...we've had a bad time lately. Meat here is too expensive for us and we can't hunt.”  
Bilbo looked so ashamed that Thorin didn't have the hearth to answer him.  
Instead he gathered Merry in his arms and sat down at the table on a pretty blue pillow, Sam settling on one of his side, silent and shy as he usually was, asking for permission with a nervous smile, to which Thorin answered with a nod and a small grin.  
Bilbo, relieved, sat on the King's other side, his mother and Frodo following him shortly after.  
“I hope you'll enjoy your lunch, Your Highness.” said Belladonna serving him an abundant serving of stew, with lentils as a side dish.  
It was a very frugal lunch compared to the ones his Cooks cooked for him everyday, but it was very good, the ingredients fresh and nice-flavoured.  
While eating, he noticed how Bilbo's and his mother's portions were smaller than his or the children's, with more lentils than stew, and not very much of them at all.  
Inviting Thorin for lunch must have costed him a lot more than they could afford, but they looked happy nonetheless.  
Every couple of seconds, Bilbo looked down at Pippin, seated on his laps, playing silently with a small piece of cloth, while Belladonna made sure the other kids didn't end up with more lunch on their clothes than in their stomachs.  
It was so similar to what his sister Dis did when Fili and Kili were younger, that he no longer felt uncomfortable, sitting there with Landless people, sharing their meagre lunch.  
“It was really good, ma'am, you're a wonderful cook.” said the King politely as soon as his dish was completely clean.  
“Thank you Your Majesty, hope you still have room for some fruit.”  
Thorin had room for at least three more servings, but it probably wouldn't have been the right thing to say, so he just nodded.  
“Fruit?! We have fruit?” gasped Sam from his left.  
“We do, darling, I bought cherries.” said Bilbo with a smile, watching the children smiling delighted at the prospect of fruit; Pippin in the meantime, had shifted on his laps, trying to grab Thorin's tunic but not quite reaching with his short arms.  
While the kids started devouring their cherries, Thorin took Pippin from his uncle's grasp and finally let him play with the hem of his tunic.  
“Oh dear, you shouldn't have! He has a habit of..putting...them...in his mouth...Pippin” he sighed, distressed “I'm so sorry, I'll clean it for you.”  
“It's not a problem, really, I'm used to it, I have nephews, too.”  
“Oh yes!” intruded Belladonna with a smile “the young princes. Charming Dwarves, they are!”  
They stayed in a comfortable silence for a bit after that, disturbed only by the young ones' talking and by the little noises coming from the baby in Thorin's arms.  
“Where will you go, after Erebor?”asked suddenly the King, making Bilbo jump.  
“Probably the Iron Hills. Lord Dain doesn't like our presence, but there's a Masterless land near a river.” shrugged Bella “but, who knows, maybe we'll just go back to Rivendell.”  
“The Thains will probably want us to the Hiron Hills before Winter, mum.”  
“Thains?”  
“Our leaders, from the most important family. My husband, Bungo, was a Thain, but when he died, Bilbo was too young to succeed him.”  
“And so Otho became one. Lucky day for us all.” said Bilbo sarcastically, rolling his eyes.  
“I see. So they're like Kings?”  
“No, they don't hold that much power, they're more like..a Council, I think.”  
“Oh. So you don't have a King?”  
“What use would one have? We don't even have a land to call our own!”  
Bilbo had a point.  
A landless King would have been useless, especially for a race who had never had one.  
After that brief discussion, Thorin felt again the need to leave and go back to the Mountain, so, after thanking Belladonna, saying goodbye to the children and being escorted back to the Doors by Bilbo and a sleeping Pippin, he returned to the richness of his Palace.  
That afternoon, and the evening that followed it, Thorin kept thinking about the Hobbits' hospitality, their capability to share all they had, even if barely enough for them, with others, and about Bilbo's words.  
What use had a King for a landless people?  
He couldn't find an answer, and when he finally collapsed into his bed, he fell into an uneasy sleep.  
He was waken at dawn by the smell of burning wood and screams of agony coming from outside the Wall.  
He rushed to the window, looking towards the Doors.  
Th Landless Hobbits' Camp was on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Belladonna Took makes her appearance! She looks like a kind, sweet lady in this chapter, but you'll see soon how she's really like! Gots balls of steel that woman!  
> 2\. Someday Bilbo and Thorin will actually have a proper conversation, I swear!  
>  As soon as Thorin will take the stick out of his arse and Bilbo will stop making Thorin  
>  go into reflective mode  
> 3\. Cliffhanger. Yep. I know. I hate them, too. Sorry.


	4. Chapter 4

Flames as tall as buildings came from the Camp.  
Screams of fear and pain and anguish pierced the morning air and through the King's own soul.  
Running along the hallways of his palace, he bumped into Dwalin, who was running in his direction, already covered in sweat and breathing heavily.  
“What the hell is happening out there?” demanded the King, not waiting for his friend's own question.  
“A fire in the Camp, I've already sent my Dwarves down there” answered Dwalin between shorts gulps of air “still no information about it”.  
Absent-mindedly, Thorin nodded, walking towards the Doors, followed at a brief distance by Dwalin and, he later noticed, by his sister and his Sister-sons.  
When they reached the Camp, it looked as if Melkor had come down to earth, the smell of smoke both suffocating and blinding.  
“Dìs, you and the boys go help who's been injured, call Oin, if you need it, but stay away from the fire, all three of you!” ordered Thorin, looking around for someone else to help the Hobbits.  
Dìs grabbed her older brother's arm with force, forcing him to focus his attention to her. “Don'y you dare die on me now, you dollop head, got it?”  
“Yes, now go!” he watched them go and then turned to Dwalin “we need to go in there, save as much as we can. And send one of your Dwarves to Dale, Bard could send someone to help us here.”  
Dwalin nodded, running towards the group of guards nearby, barking orders at them, making them jump.  
Without a second thought, Thorin leaped into the fire, walking through burning tapestries and tents.  
What he'd seen the day before, the beautiful arrangement of light coloured drapes and the breathe-taking view of the Hobbits going around it, had been burnt to a cinder.  
He could already see burnt corpses on the ground, some reduce in such shapes that made them unrecognisable and the sight of them made Thorin's stomach turn.  
They were all innocent and unarmed and they had died horribly.  
The sound of something falling to the ground made him turn around quickly.  
“Help! Please help!” screamed a voice, raucous because of the smoke.  
“Stay there, I'm coming!” he answered, running to the voice.  
“King Thorin!” the female Hobbit standing before him was unknown to the King, but he knelt beside her, lifting her from the ground, careful of her broken leg, that was bent at an unnatural angle.  
“I'll take you out of here, what's your name?” the King asked, trying to distract the Hobbit woman, while running to the healing camp set up by his sister.  
“Lily Baggins, Your Majesty. You know my great-nephew, Bilbo.”  
Bilbo.  
The mention of the Dancer made Thorin's heart stop.  
He had to find him, his mother and the kids as soon as possible.  
Leaving Lily Baggins with one of the Healers, he looked around, trying to find at least one of them, but without success.  
At least until Gloin, his cousin and part of Dwalin's guard, come out of the flames holding Belladonna's waist, the Hobbit leaning heavily on the Dwarf with a limp in her step.  
As soon as she got a glimpse of Thorin, however, she straightened and marched to him, as much as her limp allowed her, with such a fire in her eyes that would have made a lesser Dwarf back away from her.  
“You! You burnt us alive! You're no better than the others!” she yelled at him, so near he could actually see each freckle on her smoke-covered face.  
Thorin was confused by her outburst and tried to make her see reason, but apparently to no avail, seeing as the Hobbit was shaking frantically, barely containing her fury.  
“I did no such a thing, Lady Belladonna! I never even thought about something like that!”  
“Lies! We all heard them! We all did!”  
“I have no idea what you're talking about, but I have no time now, you have to tell me where you last saw your son and your grandsons, I haven't found them yet.”  
At that, Belladonna's face went white and she looked about to faint right into Thorin's arms “You...you did not find them? Oh Eru! Oh Eru!” she burst out crying “they were in their tent, just next to mine” she sobbed desperately, her body shaking convulsively.  
“I'll find them, I swear on Mahal's hammer. You stay here. Kili, take her to your mother, Fili, with me, now”.  
“Where are we going, uncle? We're going to be crushed by those planks!” Fili shouted, running through the burning Camp alongside his uncle.  
“There are kids still alive in there!”  
“They were alive! They could be dead by now! It's suicide!”  
“Shut up and help me! They should be here, somewhere”.  
“Thorin!” Little Sam came out of nowhere, his clothes slightly burnt and his red hair almost black because of the cinder “you have to help us, uncle Bilbo is hurt!”  
“Hurt?”  
“He isn't waking up! He hurt his head!”  
Without a moment hesitation, both uncle and nephew entered the burning tent, following Sam into it, and found himself in front of Bilbo's motionless body onto the ground, surrounded by his crying nephews, Merry holding Pippin tightly to his chest.  
“Fili, take Bilbo and get out, I'll follow you! Frodo, Merry, get up, we have to go!”  
Both the boys leaped from the ground, Merry passing Pippin to Thorin, the baby stopping wailing as soon as he mas held close to Thorin's broad chest.  
They all run outside the burning Camp, until they were safe, the air starting flowing again into their abused lungs.  
Dìs soon started checking the new arrivals, declaring all them healthy apart from their cough caused by the smoke inhalation.  
Then she moved on Bilbo, who had just started blinking and was now trying to get up from the ground, looking for his nephews.  
“Calm down, now, you can't get up yet!” Dìs ordered, pushing Bilbo on the ground yet again, checking his vitals “your nephews are all here and they're okay. Thorin and Fili tooke them out of the fire.”  
“Mum?” asked Bilbo with a rasping, barely-there voice.  
“She has a sprained ankle, she'll be fine.” Thorin answered, passing him Pippin, whom Bilbo covered in small kisses on his round face. “It'll be all right.”  
It wouldn't be alright.  
That morning thirteen Hobbits died because of the fire.  
And during the next week another six passed for their injuries.  
The survivors were still in the healing camp, because, even if the Dwarves felt bad for the Hobbits, nobody wanted them to live within their Walls.  
During said week, Thorin and his family visited the Hobbits daily, but both Bilbo and Belladonna reused to look at them in the eyes.  
The kids, however, were another thing alltogether.  
Merry, Frodo and Sam were fascinated by the Princes and Dìs' beard attracted lots of attention the first time they saw it.  
After another, silent meeting with the Dancer and his mother, Thorin had enough and demanded an explanation for their behaviour, cornering Bilbo while he was walking around, trying to make Pippin sleep.  
“What is the meaning of this?”  
“This what?”  
“You know what! This...thing! You couldn't shut up the last time we spoke and now you barely say anything! Why?”  
“Why?” the chuckle that came from Bilbo was terrible and void of mirth “we all heard what they said.”  
“They who?” Thorin was perplexed at the Landless' response, so similar to the one Belladonna gave the day of the fire.”  
“The ones who set fire to the camp!”  
The King's eyes widened almost comically at this “Set fire? You mean it wasn't an accident?”  
“Accident? Are you trying to make me believe you thought that was a natural fire or an accident?!”  
“It wasn't?”  
Bilbo scoffed, shifting Pippin so that his head was on his uncle's shoulder “Don't play dumb with me! Those arseholes yelled they were making that for you! In your name! They said it and then they burnt us! You burnt us all!” he was crying by now, his tears wetting his hollow cheeks, fixing his eyes onto the King.  
“I never! I did not order something like that! I never would have!” Thorin was conflicted: on one hand, he wanted to defend himself, making the Hobbit apologise for his lies, but on the other hand, all he wanted was to hold the Dancer, consoling him, cradling him as close as he was cradling Pippin.  
“I want to believe you, really, but...” Bilbo sighed deeply, tired and distraught “but I heard what they said. I can't...I can't believe you!”  
“Right. Right.” Thorin looked at the Hobbit with such an intensity that made him lower his head.  
“You are welcome to stay here as long as you want, Master Hobbit. Your people will not be hurt again”  
“You can't be sure about it. They can always hurt us. They did last week, and before that again. They'll do it as soon as they can.”  
“Bilbo” Pleaded Thorin, touching the Dancer's shoulder.  
“No. Your Majesty, I understand what you want to say, but really, we aren't safer here than anywhere else. Next week, we'll go to Rivendell, as the Thains decided.”  
“So, it will be a goodbye. We won't see each others ever again .”  
A chuckle more similar to a sob than an actual laugh escaped Bilbo, making his dark blue eyes water again.  
“We won't, Your Majesty, we won't.”  
For some reason, that made Thorin want to leave his gold filled Treasure Room and start wandering across Middle-Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Melkor is the original name of Morgoth, the Ainur who competed with Eru and was defeated by the Valar (Tulkas, the Champion of Valinor, had a main role in this)  
>  He was the one who created the orcs by torturing the Elves and corrupting them and   
>  Sauron was his first Lieutenent. Quite the nice chap  
> 2\. Lily Baggins does exist! She is Mungo's (Bilbo's grandfather) sister, making her ( I suppose) Bilbo's Great-aunt  
> 3\. Don't hate me for the last part or the chapter, everything's gonna be good!  
> Sooner or later.


	5. Chapter 5

Three days after Bilbo's revelation to Thorin about the Thains' decision for the Hobbits to go back to Rivendell, the Dwarf King was still thinking about it almost incessantly.  
The only thing that distracted him from that thought was the opening of a new mithril mine on one of the lower levels of the Mountain that required his constant attention.  
He had visited the Market again, both the first and the second day after his discussion with the Hobbit, but he had not dared entering the Healing Camp set up outside the Walls, fearing another harsh reaction from its inhabitants.  
Even so, he actually saw the Dancer, completely wrapped in silky veils, dancing in a corner, under the enraptured gaze of his enthusiast audience, who clapped rhythmically their hands in time with the music played by two other Hobbits.  
For a moment it looked as if Bilbo had not seen him, but then he'd stopped his sensual dance and raised his head, looking Thorin in the eyes with such a hot stare, that the Dwarf turned on his heels and returned to this Mountain.  
Now, the third day after his last conversation with Bilbo, Thorin felt the strong need to go out and talk to him again, make him see the reason, even if he had to force him.  
But, alas, Balin, his advisor and Dwalin's brother, told him otherwise.  
He was to be at the new mine in fifteen minutes, but he was still half-asleep and with his hair all in disarray after last night sleep.  
He felt like shit.  
However, when Fili entered his room to escort him, he was almost ready, combing his hear, arranging it into its usual braids framing his face.  
“Shall we go, Uncle?” asked the Prince, with uncertainty.  
“Yes, Fili, let's go. We mustn't be late or else, Balin will have our heads”.  
“Death by the hands of an advisor, not a majestic end for a King and his heir”.  
Thorin chuckled at that “Luckily for us, we have Kili to continue the line, do you imagine it?”  
“I'd rather not, Thorin” answered Dìs coming from around a corner and startling the two speaking Dwarves “I'd rather not see our line end by my dear son's hands”.  
“I doubt this will ever be a possibility if we arrive at the mine on time and don't leave Balin waiting”.  
“Then by all means, let's go” said Dìs “we don't want Balin to be nervous and kill our loved King”.  
Obviously, they arrived late.  
And Balin was not amused.  
Not at all.  
He survived anyway, but his ankle had probably been broken by the swift kick Dwalin delivered him, on his brother's behalf.  
After a boring and long explanation, the Chief Architect decided he had said enough and left the royal Dwarves by themselves.  
But sadly not for long.  
“Your Majesty, there's a Landless here, who wants to speak to you”. Announced a guard, walking to them with his strong hand holding onto someone's slim arm.  
“You brute, let me go! I can walk by myself!” yelled the small figure, struggling against his captor.  
“Shut up, trash!” snapped the guard showing the familiar Hobbit to the ground with an harsh shove.  
“That's enough! Leave, now!” ordered Thorin to the guard, who left after sending the Hobbit sprawled on the floor a disgusted look.  
“I'm sorry about him, he shouldn't have treated you like he did” said Fili, helping him up on his feet.  
“Not a problem, I'm used to the likes of him”.   
Thorin sighed and tried to attract the others' attention to himself with a cough.  
Obviously, it didn't work.  
“Bilbo, why are you here?” asked the King to the Halfling.  
“Oh, right. The Thains asked me to deliver you this letter as soon as possible, and I had this evening free, so...here I am, Your Majesty.” answered Bilbo, handing the letter to the King, who accepted it without hesitation and put it in his pocket, to read it later.  
“Would you like some tea, dear? Something hot to eat? You're so thin!”  
Great, now Dìs was mother-henning the poor Hobbit without his consent.  
Just wonderful.  
“I'm sorry, my Lady, but I have to go back, I must be at the Camp soon, I've left my nephews with my relatives and...I really just came here to deliver that letter!” answered Bilbo, becoming more and more agitated, looking around the Hall and avoiding the others' eyes.  
“If you're sure, little one. But at least take something home for your nephews”.  
And so Thorin ended up with an armful of food, walking to the Walls with a flustered Bilbo, still shocked, but thankful to Dìs' act of generosity, trailing behind him, with a number of warm blankets in his hands and Fili grinning beside him, his arms loaded with clothes of various sizes.  
“I've never been to a Landless Camp before, you know?!” said excitedly the boy “Kili will be so jealous, when I'm going to tell him! He'll regret staying in bed all day!”  
“It's not that great, actually. After the fire, we had very few things left intact and we had to manage with what we could buy from your Market.”  
“Still, I really want to have a look! Uncle Thorin said it was wonderful, before....before the fire”.  
“It was.” nodded Thorin without hesitation “there were drapes where we have rock and pillows where we find chairs.”  
“It's just...it's because it's easier to move that way, we just...fold things up and go away again without much efforts! It's not supposed to be nice, but fast and easy!” explained the Hobbit, now completely flustered.  
“But it sounds nice to me, I mean I'm used to rock and nothing else ever since I was a babe! It must be so different!” exclaimed Fili excitedly, practically dancing around the Hobbit.  
“I wouldn't know, I've never been in a real house.” admitted Bilbo with just a hint of sadness “I've always travelled, all my life! Like my father and my grandfather before him, and my great-grandfather before and so on.”  
“It must be very hard on you little fellows.” said the Prince with a gentle tone, balancing his pile of clothes on one hand, to pat the Hobbit's shoulder with the other one.  
“It wasn't before. Now, with the boys and little Pippin, it's harder, but we'll manage, we always do.”  
“You should stay here until the end of winter” suggested Thorin in a low voice.  
“And risk another attack like the last one?!” snorted unattractively Bilbo “I don't think so, in Rivendell we'll be safe, at least. Lord Elrond is an old friend of my mother, he'll take care of us”.  
The stayed in silence until they reached the Camp, when Fili let out an amazed sound, finding himself in front of the colourful tents.  
“It's wonderful! I knew it had to be, even while it was burning it looked great, but now...it's just so amazing!” exclaimed the excited young Dwarf “And you build it yourselves?! How?”  
Bilbo was about to answer when a female voice reached their hears.  
And not a pleasant one.  
“Baggins! Take your lazy arse here right now! You just had to give the damned Dwarf King one letter! One! And you've been away for an hour! You really are useless!” shouted the woman, stomping toward the trio with an angry glare on her face. “Stupid, useless boy! Now what you've got here? Come on, let me see!”  
“Hello Lobelia. I'm afraid these things are a gift for my family. You won't have them, this time”. Stated the Hobbit firmly, his mouth a thin line.  
“Won't have them?! Really?! You think yourself better than me, because you've become that foolish King's whore?! You are nothing, Bilbo Baggins, nothing! Go back to the Market and keep whoring around like usual, then you'll have your fair share of goods!”  
Bilbo's face looked ready to burst in flames, but his voice was calm when he spoke again to the woman.  
“I won't. Lady Dìs gifted those things to me. You won't have them, just because you're one of the Thains' wife. Now leave me be, I have to go to my nephews.”  
“Oh, really?! I see how it is! You think you know better?! Well, you'll change your mind when my husband will order you to give me all of this!” yelled Lobelia, storming away, not even bothering to notice the two Dwarves' presence.  
Bilbo sighed deeply and turned to them with an half-smile.  
“I'm sorry you had to see that. Lobelia never really liked me, she's always like that with everyone, I'm afraid.”  
“She was most rude to you! Will she really take your things away from you?!” asked Fili in disbelief.  
“She'll try, I'll have to give her something in the end, but with my mother present she won't be as bold as she'd just been.”  
“And what he said...about you being a....being a” stuttered the Prince, blushing madly “a...you know!”  
“A whore?” asked Bilbo gently “I'm not one. At the moment dancing helps me earn enough so I don't really need to sell myself. But to Lobelia is just as if I'm doing it, she always calls me that when she's angry.”  
“But it's such a terrible thing to say! You would never...never....sell yourself to others right?”  
“I'd try not to, but...to help my mum and my nephews, I'd do everything I can!”  
Thorin's heart missed a beat at that.  
At last he remembered who he was standing before to.  
Hobbits.   
The forgotten sons of Yavanna, left without a land and forced to march through the world without an actual destination forever.  
Hobbits.  
Thieves, beggars and whores.  
Landless.  
He went back to the Mountain that day, a shocked Fili in tow, with a heavy heart.  
Because while he thought to know everything of the world, the desperation and determination mixed in Bilbo's eyes that morning left him speechless and hunted his sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1\. There are a lot of women I love in LOTR,but Lobelia is not one of them. On the contrary, I always picture Dìs as a badass woman with a great sense of loyalty to her brother and her Kingdom!  
> 2\. Lobelia, as I said, is just plain mean sometimes. In the books and in the movies, she keeps stealing Bilbo's silver spoons. Here they don't own silver spoons, obviously, so she tries to steals all she can from poor Bilbo.  
> 3\. Bilbo will not become a prostitute. I want to point this out. He said he would to help his family, but he won't. I thought a lot about writing or not this passage, but in the end I did, because I wanted to show Thorin's reaction to such a declaration. It's the reaction I think anyone grown-up in a wealthy situation (he' s the KING!) would have at such a declaration and it makes him reflect about what really Hobbits are. In the next chapter his doubts will find answers, fear not!  
> 4\. About Fili's behaviour: I think he'd be a bit timid and shy talking about things like prostitution and other not-so-legal things, because he grew up, like his Uncle in a sheltered place, shielded by the reality of the life going on around him. So he's a bit ashamed, and doesn't really understand why Bilbo or anyone else would do something like that, but he is a sweetheart and will try and understand the Hobbits' condition as good as he can. Really, I just love him a lot and I hope I've not been too OOC, but I think he, being the older brother and the heir and all, is not really the carefree, mindless guy most people think he is, I'll leave that role to his younger brother.


	6. Chapter 6

It was raining the day after Thorin last saw the Hobbit.  
And to make things worse, his cousin Dain and his delegation were supposed to arrive within the next two hours.  
While he was waiting in his room, pacing about the chamber, the letter given to him by the Halfling rested in his front pocket, still unread.  
It wasn't because he was afraid of what it might say, no, absolutely no.  
He simply had no time to waste on reading some foolish letter written by some uncultured Hobbit about Mahal only knows what.  
He shifted a bit, staring outside the window for any sign from the Landless Camp or from one of Dain's heralds, but, rain aside, it was all very calm and quiet.  
A soft knock on the door made him startle and reach for his sword, Deathless, spinning around and finding himself face-to-face with his sister Dìs and a following of Hobbit faunts clinging to her royal blue dress, their wet clothes leaving a puddle on the floor.  
“Hello, brother dear! I found those three wandering about the Palace, hiding behind our furnitures and I decided to take them here! They said they know you and that they are the nephews of that charming young Hobbit Dancer who visited yesterday!”  
Thorin frowned, looking at the boys who squirmed a bit under his heavy gaze.  
“Yes, I know them. And I know they shouldn't be here without their uncle.”  
“Oh, he knows we're here, Mister King! We left him a message! Mister Bofur said he would tell him!” exclaimed Merry, his fellows nodding along with his words.  
“Mister Bofur? The Dwarf from the Mine Guild? That Bofur?” asked Dìs with a frown.  
“That's him! He's uncle's friend, always give him a lot of money!” Said Frodo, emphasizing the 'lot' by spreading his arms as much as he could.  
“Lots of money? Really? A Miner?” asked Thorin, his voice laced with sarcasm.  
“Yes! And his cousin, mister Bifur, made a toy for each of us! Even for Pippin!” added Sam, scrunching his nose up “he always drools on it, though.”  
“He drools 'cause he's a baby, Sam! They always Drool! Myrtle does too!”   
“That's disgusting too!”  
Thorin rubbed at his temples, sighing deeply before addressing the kids another time, tired of listening to their childish banters, that were way too similar to the ones his own sister-sons sill had.  
“I don't care if you told your uncle or not, but today I have no time to deal with you kids.”  
“Why not?” demanded Frodo, looking at the king straight in the eyes.  
“Because, little one, I'm waiting for a guest, an important one.”  
“Who?”  
Curse Hobbits and their curiosity.  
“My cousin Dain, Lord of the Hiron Hills.”  
“The bitchy, fat one?” asked Frodo, tilting his head in a way frightfully similar to his uncle.  
“I...suppose he is a bit on the fat side, yes.” answered Dìs, covering her laughter with her hand.  
“He's very fat! He always sent guards chasing after us, when we went to the Market! He only let uncle dance because he liked to watch. Old pervert Dwarf, Grandma always said!” stated Merry happily, not noticing the shocked faces of the Royal Dwarves.  
“Okay...that, I did not expect from our cousin.”  
“Neither did I. But now the three of you are coming with me to wait for your uncle.”  
“Where are we going? It's raining outside, in case you haven't noticed!”  
“In case you hadn't notice, Merry, your wet clothes are slowly flooding my Chamber, so now you, me and your cousins are coming with me to change and wait for Bilbo in the Throne Room, how does this sound to you?” asked Thorin, his voice full of irony and exasperation at the kids' antics.  
“Cool, can we play on the Throne?!” asked Frodo excitedly, jumping up and down, getting droplets of water on anything near himself.  
“Yes, yes, but for Mahal's sake, stay still, you're getting water everywhere!”  
“Thank you!” without another word the three Hobbit children ran from the Room, leaving the Royal siblings by themselves.  
“You seem to have found yourself a handful of troubles again, brother dear.”  
“Shut up.”  
xXx

“...and so, the Princess of the Elves, Arwen, gave me a kiss on the cheek and she said she will marry me as soon as I'll be of age!”  
The Gods must hate him, mused Thorin, sitting on his Throne, listening to Merry's endless chatter while the fauntling sat on his laps, happy to say whatever came to his mind while his two partners-in-crime played on the floor with some gems they found on the ground, tumbled from the Treasure.  
“Sweet Mahal, this is not something you see everyday!”  
The unexpected exclamation startled all the four occupants of the Throne Room, who snapped their heads up staring at the newcomers with wide eyes.  
“Dain, my cousin. It's a pleasure to see you.” said Thorin, standing to his feet, Merry still clinging to his shirt.  
He came face-to-face with his cousin and bumped his own head against his relative's, startling the Hobbit in his harm who yelped.  
“So, my dear cousin, what do you have here? Landless children? What use do you have for trash like that?”  
“The Hobbits are my guest, Dain, and I'd be grateful if you'd not say such things, especially in front of them.”  
“What do you care? It's not like they're worth the clothes they're wearing. Only good for stealing and whoring, that's all.”  
“From what I've been told, they're also good at dancing, Cousin.”  
Dain sneered at him, a fake, mirthless smile playing on his lips “So you do know him, the little Dancer. He refused everything I promised him, all the gems and gold I swore to give his family! He despised me and fought me, making me look like a fool and a madman!”  
Seeing him spitting saliva everywhere, face contorted with rage, Thorin had little problems seeing his cousin like the madman his people saw in him.  
And by the noises coming from Merry in his arms and Frodo and Sam from the floor, the children agreed with him.  
“Yes, Dain, I know him but..”  
“He does dance like Nessa come to earth, doesn't he? That beautiful, beautiful jewel. I would keep him with me, should he allow it. Yes, to keep him safe!”  
Thorin stared at Dain with an expression full both of concern and disgust at his cousin's behaviour, looking horrified when the Dwarf Lord started to describe how he would keep Bilbo safe, with unfocused eyes and a mad expression about him.  
If only he's stopped talking for a moment to look at the faces of the ones standing before him, he would have found their shocked looks and, in the tiny Hobbits' cases, hate and disgust.  
Suddenly, though, Dain's rambling was cut by the arrival of a Dwarf and the very Hobbit of whom the Dwarf Lord was talking about in such a crazed way.  
Thorin's breath hitched when he saw the attire of the Dancer that day, his wet curls flat on his head and his green dress, barely reaching his mid-thigh, was stuck to his body forming a second skin, and leaving very few things to the King's immagination.  
He quickly glanced at Dain and found an obsessed look in his eyes, that were focused on the visible expanse of skin of Bilbo's legs.  
Clearing his throat, the King finally settled his gaze on the Dwarf, who was standing awkwardly next to the Dancer, shifting on the balls of his feet and not meeting Thorin's eyes, playing with his long scarf.  
Shifting his look on the Hobbit, he met his wide eyes, the pupil almost invisible, lost in his grey-blue eyes.  
He looked terrified.  
Completely frightened by the sole presence of Dain.  
Not even his nephews' hand clutching at his clothes seemed to calm him enough to stop shaking and Thorin could clearly see one of his hand reaching for the Miner's tunic, holding it tightly in his grasps, trying and apparently failing at finding some sort of relief by the touch.  
“You...you are here! My pretty emerald, my precious diamond, my wonderful ruby, you're here! I missed you so!”  
Bilbo backed off, avoiding the hand that had come towards his face.  
“You have to stop avoiding me, little Dancer, if you don't stop I'll might become angry and you don't want me to be angry, right, little Emerald?”  
“Don't call him that! Leave him alone or I'll be forced to make you leave!”  
“You won't cousin, you need me for your trades. You can't force me to do anything. I can.”  
With those last words the fat Dwarf Lord turned to leave, glancing behind his shoulders to look at them one last time before leaving.  
“Remember my words, cousin Thorin: I always get what I want, and I want him. He'll be mine and mine alone.”  
As soon as he was out of the Throne Room, Bilbo seemed to collapse, the only thing keeping him from hitting the floor was his hold on the Miner's tunic, but when he met Thorin's eyes again, they were clear, hard and unreadable.  
“Boys, we are going now. Bofur, take Frodo, please. Your Majesty, I apologize for any trouble caused by my presence here. Had I known Lord Dain was here, I wouldn't have come.”  
Thorin just nodded dumbly, staring at the Hobbit before him, the very Hobbit who had opposed, without even saying a word or raising a hand, to one of the greatest Dwarf Lord in all Middle-Earth and had won.  
After he and the other three little Hobbits left, followed closely by the Dwarf Miner, he finally read the letter the Thains had written him, which he found full of errors, but that clearly asked him to restock their supply.  
He went to bed after writing his reply, allowing the Hobbits to take whatever they needed from his stocks, and with a sense of uneasiness settled in his bones.  
He bolted awake in the middle of the night, when he felt a hand on his mouth, keeping it closed.  
A knife pointed at his throat.  
Complete darkness surrounded him and his assaulter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1\. I thought a lot about whom would have been the best choice for “Frollo” and, in the end, I opted for Dain, because I really don't know a lot about him, apart from the fact that he'll become King after Thorin's death in the Hobbit and that his son is also called Thorin (the third) and because of this I didn't particularly feel concerned about writing him as a mad and greedy Lord. Let me know what you think about it!  
> 2\. Bofur is a sweetheart. In the one-shot I'm writing we're going to see how he and Bilbo met and became friends and the role he has in the relationship between the Hobbit and his King. And no, Bilbo and him were/are/will not be lovers or something, not because I don't ship Bilbo with him (actually I ship Bilbo with half the Company), but because this story is about Bilbo and Thorin. We'll meet him again, anyway!  
> 3\. Dain says that Bilbo “dances like Nessa”. Now, Nessa is one of the Valier, a Queen of the Valar, the goddess of dance and beauty, wife of Tulkas. She's something akin to Aphrodite, for her beauty and Artemis, for her affinity with nature.  
> 4\. I'm just sorry for the cliffhanger!


	7. Chapter 7

“Don't shout, don't try and run away, stay still.”  
Thorin stared wide-eyed before himself, not seeing anything in the absolute darkness, but the voice he'd heard whispering that threat in his ear was not Dain's as he expected, but Bilbo's.  
What was Bilbo doing in his room at this time of the night?  
Had a knife not being pressed to his throat, he would have thought this was just one of the wild dreams that had jolted him awake in a quite hot and bothered state for the last few weeks.  
But, alas, the knife was there and was digging quite uncomfortably in the skin of his throat.  
“I'm sorry for the rude awakening, Your Majesty, but I'm afraid we have much to discuss.” said the Hobbit removing carefully his hand from Thorin's mouth.  
“And you think coming into my room in the middle of the night would have convinced me to do so?!” asked the King in disbelief, turning to face Bilbo, mindful of the weapon at his throat.  
“I'm afraid it was the only way. Sit down.”  
Thorin did so, muttering all the while about bossy Hobbits and that being his room, while Bilbo lightened the candles.  
“So, I'll be quick: I need your help. We need your help.”  
“And you came here demanding help while threatening me?! You think that just because you've been in my favours, you have the right to come here, in my rooms, at night like a thief?!”  
The Hobbit did not avoid Thorin's glare, nor did he flinch at his harsh words.  
“It was the only way, Dain has placed guards at every door, you're surrounded by his Dwarves, Thorin.”  
“How could he...why?!” asked the Dwarf bewildered, his eyes the size of plates.  
“He obviously wants your Throne, for one, and also, he obviously wants to keep me as his pet, I think ha made this part very clear today.” he said with a shrug, trying and failing to hide the tension of his shoulders.  
“So what, you've come here to warn me?”  
“No, as I said, I need your help. Not only has your palace been surrounded, but also our Camp is full of Dain's guards and we have to leave before winter comes, or we'll never survive long enough to reach Rivendell. You have to help us, please!” he begged.  
Thorin stared at Bilbo, at the strong Hobbit begging him for help against his cousin's madness, and for a moment he saw the Dancer's strong façade falling into pieces, to return stronger than ever the next second.  
“I cannot remove his guards from your Camp, I'm sorry”  
“You won't help us?! You'll let him do what he wants?” the Hobbit looked completely shocked by Thorin's answer, but glancing up at him he saw his focused face and let the King finish what he'd started saying.  
“I cannot remove them, but I could give you sanctuary in the mountains through the winter; Dain will stay until Durin's day, so he'll be here for another three weeks, in this time I could keep an eye on him..”  
“...and have us spared by the harsh weather. This could actually work! But where could we stay? We can't just come into the Mountain and claim it for ourselves!”  
Thorin refrained from telling Bilbo that sixty thin, raggedy Hobbits could hardly claim a land to call theirs, much less a Mountain well-protected by its inhabitants, but Bilbo had a point.  
Where indeed could he hide a group of Hobbits?  
They thought about it for a moment in silence, both of them lost in their thoughts.  
“The Catacombs!” shouted Bilbo, making Thorin snap his head towards him.  
“What?! That's a sacred place!” Thorin was scandalized.  
“Oh, as if the people buried in there would care about us being there!” said Bilbo waving his hands dismissively.  
“But it's a sin!”  
“I'm sure between all us Hobbits, we've made far worse things than staying in Catacombs! It'll be perfect! We have to telle the Thains!” exclaimed Bilbo, grabbing Thorin's hand and leading him to an hidden passage in the wall, leaving the Dwarf speechless.  
“How did you know about this passage? And how did you know about the Catacombs?!”  
“That's a secret, now, come along, Thorin, we need to be stealthy and quiet!”  
They continued to move through the sleeping Mountain in silence, hiding when they heard the sound of footsteps around a corner and using secret passages Thorin didn't even thought existed.  
Had he not been so focused on the feelings of his hand being held by Bilbo, he would have been complaining about him being a King moving like a thief in his own Palace, but, at the moment, his mind was only focusing on Bilbo and his so much smaller hand.  
“Now you have to be even more quiet than you've been, we need to avoid the Guards and reach the Camp unseen, is that clear?”  
“Right, okay.”  
“Good.”  
They settled again in a tense silence, barely daring to breath as they reached the Hobbit settlement, where most of the lights were off, save a few, one of which being in Bilbo's own tent, where Belladonna was waiting for them, still very awake and surrounded by sleepy Hobbitlings and a very much asleep babe.  
“Bilbo! What happened, you've been away far longer than I would have thought!”  
“Just difficult moving through Dain's guards, but I'm okay, Thorin will come and speak to the Thains.”  
“Your Majesty.” greeted Belladonna with a stony expression on her pretty face.  
She still hadn't forgiven him for the fire, apparently.  
“Lady Belladonna, it' always a pleasure.”  
“Sure...now Bilbo, we have to wake everybody up and call the Council for giving them the last news!” ordered Belladonna, while pushing her son out of the tent alongside with the Dwarf King.  
“Mum you don't even know what I'm going to say!”  
“Well, I will ina few minutes if you just move!” with that se returned inside the tent, probably to change from her night gown into something more formal.  
“We...have to wake everybody?”  
“Don't be stupid, we'll just tell my neighbours and they'll do the same with theirs, and so on and so forth.” stated Bilbo entering the tent next to his without as much as a knock on one of the wooden poles keeping it upright.  
Thorin waited for him outside and, after a few second, the Hobbit came of the tent and, with long strides – as long as his short Hobbity legs permitted him-, re-entered in his, followed by the King.  
“Ehm, now what?” asked Thorin, only to find himself with his face covered by a piece of cloth that revealed to be Bilbo's own shirt.  
“Now I make myself presentable, while you stay there and look all majestic. And I mean it. Stay there.”  
Thorin watched Bilbo getting changed wondering all the while what idea of presentable the Hobbit had.  
Because flimsy short-trousers covered by a much-too-revealing long blue tunic were not what he had in mind when thinking about being presentable.  
But the cherry on top of all that had been the -obviously fake- gleaming jewels at his ankle and wrists.  
At least Bilbo had the decency to look sheepish and explain that when the Council was called all Hobbits had to wear the symbols of their trade, and he, being a dancer, had to wear his fake jewellery.  
That didn't mean he had to dress like that, anyway.  
Just when Thorin was about to answer him, Belladonna came out from what he had assumed was her bedroom, like her son covered in jewels -Thorin noted how they were not as shiny as Bilb's were, probably due to disuse-, but decidedly better dressed, with a nice green dress reaching her shins.  
He watched them move around the tent, waking the little boys, dressing them in battered but clean clothes and handing them each one of their scarce toys.  
Then, Bilbo lifted Pippin from his basket and held him close to his chest, humming lowly to make him stop shuffling and fall again in a deep sleep.  
Thorin found himself holding hands with Frodo and Sam, while a very grumpy-looking Merry was carried by his grandmother.  
Taking a deep breath, Thorin went out of the tent and prepared himself for the Council.  
The first Council in his life not held by Dwarves, but by Hobbits, creatures he'd never thought had even a vague form of government.  
The Hobbits he had now the proof could hardly read and write enough to be understood.  
The Hobbit who had no Land nor a place to call their own.  
He was utterly terrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No actual notes, more like thank you for reading, reviewing, favouring, following and for you support!  
> Also, I was thinking about writing some one-shots in this AU and I'd like to know what you think about it, would you like to read more? Let me know, I'm 12-little-doctors on Tumblr!  
> Erika

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Smaug never happened in this, Thorin became King when Thrain died, living him the throne. He has a friendly enough relationship with both Elves and Men, not having been disappointed by Thranduill nor by the Men after Smaug's death.  
> 2\. Hobbits never settled in the Shire. For this reason they are like gypsies, going around the world but never really stopping too much in the same place. Like gypsies, they too are victims of prejudices by others and thus are considered thieves or whores (not assassins, because they're too small to be seen as a real menace)  
> 3\. Frodo swears. Yep.  
> 4\. Bilbo, Bilbo is my Esmeralda in this one (It doesn't mean that Thorin is Frollo/Phoebus/Quasimodo, nor that he'll fall for the King so easily.) because there's something esmeraldesque in him, like his need to travel which he shares with Book!Esmeralda/Musical!Esmeralda  
> 5\. Thorin, I just love him so much! He's such a dumbass...  
> 6\. If you want to hear something good along the lines of this story, try Cocciante's musical version of Notre.Dame de Paris (I like it better in Italian, the Italian Clopin is amazing!)  
> End of rant, thank you again


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